USE  OF  TOBACCO 

AMONG 
NORTH  AMERICAN  INDIANS 

BY 

RALPH  LINTON 
AswiSTANT  Curator  of  North  American  Ethnoi/xjy 


Anthropology 
Lkaflkt  15 


FIELD  MUSEUM  OF  NATURAL  HISTORY 

CHICAGO 
1924 


Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

DEPARTMENT  OF  ANTHROPOLOGY 
Cbicaoo,  1984 


Lbaplbt  Numbcb  16 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American 
Indians 

Tobacco  has  been  one  of  the  most  important  gifts 
from  the  New  World  to  the  Old.  In  spite  of  the 
attempts  of  various  authors  to  prove  its  Old  World 
origin  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  was  introduced 
into  both  Europe  and  Africa  from  America.  Most 
species  of  Nicotiana  are  native  to  the  New  World, 
and  there  are  only  a  few  species  which  are  undoubtedly 
extra- American.  The  custom  of  smoking  is  also  charac- 
teristic of  America.  It  was  thoroughly  established 
throughout  eastern  North  and  South  America  at  the 
time  of  the  discovery;  and  the  early  explorers,  from 
Columbus  on,  speak  of  it  as  a  strange  and  novel  prac- 
tice which  they  often  find  it  hard  to  describe.  It 
played  an  important  part  in  many  religious  cere- 
monies, and  the  beliefs  and  observances  connected 
with  it  are  in  themselves  proof  of  its  antiquity.  Hun- 
dreds of  pipes  have  been  found  in  the  pre-Columbian 
mounds  and  village  sites  of  the  eastern  United  States 
and,  although  these  remains  cannot  be  dated,  some  of 
them  must  be  of  considerable  age.  In  the  southwestern 
United  States  the  Basket  Makers,  an  ancient  people 
whose  remains  are  found  below  those  of  the  prehistoric 
Cliff  Dwellers,  were  smoking  pipes  at  a  time  which 
could  not  have  been  much  later  than  the  beginning  of 
our  era. 

At  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  America,  tobacco 
was  in  use  over  the  greater  part  of  the  continent.    It 

[1] 


2  Field  Museum  op  Natural  History 

was  not  used  in  the  sub-Arctic  regions  of  North  Ameri- 
ca or  in  the  extreme  southern  part  of  Southern  Ameri- 
ca. On  the  west  coast  of  South  America  and  in  the 
Andean  highlands  it  was  replaced  by  another  nar- 
cotic, coca  (Erythroxylum  coca),  from  which  the 
modern  drug  cocaine  is  extracted.  The  coca  leaves 
were  dried  and  chewed  with  powdered  lime.  Tobacco 
was  smoked  throughout  most  of  its  range,  but  the 
tribes  of  the  northwest  coast  of  North  America  mixed 
it  with  shell  lime  and  made  it  into  small  pellets  wWch 
were  allowed  to  dissolve  in  the  mouth.  The  tribes  of 
Washington,  Oregon  and  a  great  part  of  California 
used  it  in  the  same  way,  but  also  smoked  it.  Along 
the  eastern  side  of  the  Andean  highlands  in  South 
America  tobacco  was  both  smoked  and  chewed.  The 
chewing  tobacco  was  prepared  like  the  Andean  coca, 
and  the  idea  was  probably  borrowed  from  coca 
chewing. 

Although  Europeans  learned  the  custom  of  smok- 
ing from  the  Indians  and  even  copied  the  Indian  smok- 
ing appliances  rather  closely,  the  modern  American 
custom  of  tobacco  chewing  may  not  be  of  Indian  origin. 
None  of  the  North  American  Indians  east  of  the 
Rocky  Mountains  chewed  tobacco,  and  the  only  point 
at  which  South  American  tobacco  chewing  reached  the 
Atlantic  Coast  was  a  small  region  in  northern  Colom- 
bia. Modern  chewing  tobacco  lacks  the  admixture  of 
powdered  lime,  which  was  considered  necessary  by  all 
Indian  tobacco  chewers  and  seems  to  have  been  an 
invention  of  the  white  frontiersmen.  It  is  possible, 
however,  that  the  idea  of  tobacco  chewing  was  carried 
to  the  English  colonies  by  the  Spaniards,  who  may 
have  learned  it  from  the  South  American  Indians. 

The  North  American  Indians  used  at  least  nine 
species  of  Nicotiana,  most  of  which  were  cultivated. 
Nicotiana  tabacum,  the  species  to  which  practically  all 
the  modem  commercial  tobaccos  belong,  was  grown 

[2] 


LEAFLET  15. 


AMERICAN  INDIAN  TOBACCO  PIPES. 


1.  BOWL  OF  BASKETMAKER  PIPE.  2.  BOWLS  OF  SOUTHWESTERN  TUBULAR 
PIPES.  3.  SOUTHWESTERN  TUBULAR  PIPE.  SANDSTONE.  4.  CALIFORNIA  CLAY 
PIPE.  5.      CALIFORNIA   STEATITE    PIPE.  6.      PIPE   WITH    STEATITE    BOWL   AND 

WOODEN  STEM,   AND  PIPE  CASE,   CALIFORNIA. 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians  3 

throughout  Mexico,  the  West  Indies,  and  in  northern 
and  eastern  South  America.  It  was  unknown  north 
of  Mexico  until  its  introduction  into  Virginia  by  the 
English  colonists.  Nicotiana  rustica,  a  much  hardier 
species  with  a  yellow  flower,  was  grown  by  the  Indians 
of  the  eastern  United  States  and  Canada  as  far  west 
as  the  great  plains  and  as  far  north  as  agriculture  was 
possible.  It  was  the  first  tobacco  grown  in  Virginia 
for  the  European  trade,  but  was  soon  supplanted  there 
by  N.  tabacum.  Small  patches  of  it  are  still  cultivated 
by  some  of  the  Central  Algonquian  tribes  who  use  it  in 
their  ceremonies.  N.  attemiata  was  used  over  a  larger 
area  than  any  other  species.  It  is  found  in  its  natural 
state  in  the  southwestern  United  States  and  southern 
plains,  and  as  a  cultivated  plant  extends  northward 
into  western  Canada  and  British  Columbia.  It  was 
also  cultivated  on  the  lower  Colorado,  but  the  typical 
Pueblo  tribes  do  not  seem  to  have  raised  it.  N.  multi- 
vcUvis  was  grown  in  Washington  and  Oregon,  as  well 
as  by  the  Crow,  who  lived  on  the  western  edge  of  the 
plains.  A  related  species  (N.  qiiadrivalvis)  was  grown 
by  the  settled  tribes  along  the* Missouri  river.  Still 
another  species  (N.  biglovii)  was  used  by  the  Cali- 
fornia tribes,  and  is  known  to  have  been  cultivated  by 
the  Hupa.  The  three  last-named  species  are  rather 
closely  related;  it  seems  probable  that  N.  multivcUvis 
and  N.  qiiadrivalvis  were  brought  into  the  plains  area 
from  the  west,  displacing  N.  attenuata. 

There  is  very  little  information  available  on  the 
aboriginal  methods  of  tobacco  culture  in  the  eastern 
United  States.  Early  writers  say  that  it  was  not 
grown  with  other  crops,  as  it  was  believed  to  be  in- 
jurious to  them,  and  was  usually  cultivated  by  men. 
Mr.  Milford  Chandler  informs  me  that  the  Cayuga,  in 
New  York  State,  had  permanent  tobacco  beds  in  which 
the  plant  was  grown  year  after  year.  These  beds 
were  lightly  manured  from  time  to  time,  but  were  not 

[s] 


4  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

cultivated,  and  the  plants  were  left  to  propagate  them- 
selves. The  leaves  were  gathered,  but  the  stems,  with 
the  seed  pods,  were  left  standing  in  the  patch.  The 
Seneca,  another  tribe  of  the  Iroquois  confederacy, 
simply  scattered  the  seeds  on  the  ground  and  had  a 
religious  prohibition  against  cultivating  the  plant.  Mr. 
Alanson  Skinner  informs  me  that  the  Kickapoo  and 
Potawatomi  made  large  brush  piles  fifty  or  more  feet 
long  and  ten  or  twelve  feet  wide  which  they  fired  about 
the  middle  of  June.  When  the  ashes  were  cold,  the 
ground  was  hoed  up,  mixed  with  the  ashes,  and  planted 
with  tobacco  and  pumpkins.  The  tobacco  gardens 
were  made  in  the  woods,  remote  from  the  villages, 
and  were  surrounded  by  brush  fences.  The  Sauk  also 
planted  their  tobacco  in  the  ashes  of  brush-fires,  but 
did  not  break  the  ground  or  cultivate  the  crop.  In 
some  cases  they  simply  threw  a  handful  of  seeds  on 
the  ground  near  the  lodge.  The  Kickapoo,  Potawatomi 
and  Sauk  all  gathered  the  leaves  of  the  plant  in  late 
August.  They  spread  them  on  hides  or  blankets,  and 
when  they  had  wilted,  rolled  them  like  tea-leaves. 
When  dry,  the  leaves  were  crushed.  The  reason 
assigned  for  the  rolling  was  that  leaves  treated  in  this 
way  did  not  crush  to  fine  powder  like  those  that  had 
been  dried  flat.  Most  of  the  eastern  tribes  grew  only 
enough  tobacco  for  their  own  needs,  but  one,  the 
Tionontati,  raised  large  quantities  of  it  for  export  and, 
on  this  account,  were  called  Tobacco  People  (Nation 
de  Petun)  by  the  French. 

The  best  published  account  of  aboriginal  tobacco- 
culture  is  that  given  to  G.  L.  Wilson  by  Buffalobird- 
woman,  an  old  member  of  the  Hidatsa  tribe.  The 
Hidatsa  raised  a  different  species  of  tobacco  from  the 
eastern  Indians  (N.  quadrivalvis) ,  and  their  methods 
were  somewhat  different.  She  says,  "The  old  men  of 
the  tribe  who  smoked  each  had  a  tobacco  garden 
planted  not  very  far  away  from  our  corn-fields,  but 

[4] 


Use  OP  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         6 

never  in  the  same  plot  with  one.  Tobacco  gardens 
were  planted  apart,  because  the  tobacco  plants  have  a 
strong  smell  which  affects  the  corn;  if  tobacco  is 
planted  near  the  com,  the  growing  corn-stalks  turn 
yellow,  and  the  com  is  not  so  good.  Tobacco  seed  was 
planted  at  the  same  time  sunflower  seed  was  planted 
(as  early  in  April  as  the  soil  could  be  worked).  The 
owner  took  a  hoe  and  made  soft  every  foot  of  the 
tobacco  garden ;  and  with  a  rake  he  made  the  loosened 
soil  level  and  smooth.  He  marked  the  ground  with  a 
stick  into  rows  about  eighteen  inches  apart,  and  sowed 
the  seed  very  thickly  in  the  row.  He  covered  the  newly 
sowed  soil  very  lightly  with  earth  which  he  raked  with 
his  hand.  When  rain  came  and  warmth,  the  seed 
sprouted.  The  plants  came  up  thickly  so  that  they 
had  to  be  thinned  out.  The  owner  of  the  garden  would 
weed  out  the  weak  plants,  leaving  only  the  stronger 
standing.  The  earth  about  each  plant  was  hilled  up 
with  a  buffalo  rib  into  a  little  hill  like  a  com  hill.  A 
very  old  man,  I  remember,  used  a  big  buffalo  rib, 
sharpened  on  the  edge,  to  work  the  soil  and  cultivate 
his  tobacco.  He  caught  the  rib  by  both  ends  with  the 
edge  downward;  and  stooping  over,  he  scraped  the 
soil  toward  him,  now  and  then  raising  the  rib  up  and 
loosening  the  earth  with  the  point  at  one  end.  He 
knelt  as  he  worked. 

"Tobacco  plants  began  to  blossom  about  the  middle 
of  June;  and  picking  then  began.  Tobacco  was 
gathered  in  two  harvests.  The  first  harvest  was  these 
blossoms,  which  we  reckoned  the  best  part  of  the  plant 
for  smoking.  Blossoms  were  picked  regularly  every 
fourth  day.  If  we  neglected  to  pick  them  until  the 
fifth  day,  the  blossoms  would  begin  to  seed.  Only  the 
green  part  of  the  blossom  was  kept.  When  we  fetched 
the  blossoms  home  to  the  lodge,  my  father  would 
spread  a  dry  hide  on  the  floor  in  front  of  his  sacred 
objects  and  spread  the  blossoms  on  the  hide  to  dry. 

[s] 


6  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

The  smoke  hole  of  the  lodge,  being  rather  large,  would 
let  through  quite  a  strong  sunbeam,  and  the  drying 
blossoms  were  kept  directly  in  the  beam. 

"When  the  blossoms  had  quite  dried,  my  father 
fetched  them  over  near  the  fireplace  and  took  a  piece 
of  buffalo  fat,  thrust  it  on  the  end  of  a  stick  and 
roasted  it  slowly  over  the  coals.  He  touched  it  lightly 
here  and  there  to  the  piled  up  blossoms,  so  as  to  oil 
them  slightly,  but  not  too  much.  Now  and  then  he 
would  gently  stir  the  pile  of  blossoms  with  a  little 
stick,  so  that  the  whole  mass  might  be  oiled  equally. 
When  my  father  wanted  to  smoke  these  dried  blossoms, 
he  chopped  them  fine  with  a  knife,  a  pipeful  at  a  time. 
The  blossoms  were  always  dried  in  the  lodge :  If  dried 
without,  the  sun  and  air  took  away  their  strength. 

"About  harvest  time,  just  before  frost  came,  the 
rest  of  the  plants  were  gathered.  He  dried  the  plants 
in  the  lodge.  For  this  he  took  sticks,  about  fifteen 
inches  long,  and  thrust  them  over  the  beam  between 
two  of  the  exterior  supporting  posts,  so  that  the  sticks 
pointed  a  little  upwards.  On  each  of  these  sticks  he 
hung  two  or  three  tobacco  plants  by  thrusting  the 
plants,  root  up,  upon  the  stick,  but  without  tjang  them. 
When  the  tobacco  plants  were  quite  dry,  the  leaves 
readily  fell  off.  It  was  the  stems  that  furnished  most 
of  the  smoking.  They  were  treated  like  the  blossoms, 
with  buffalo  fat.  We  did  not  treat  tobacco  with  buffalo 
fat  except  as  needed  for  use,  and  to  be  put  into  the 
tobacco  pouch  ready  for  smoking. 

"Before  putting  the  tobacco  away  in  the  cache  pit, 
my  father  was  careful  to  put  aside  seed  for  the  next 
year's  planting.  He  gathered  the  black  seeds  into  a 
small  bundle  about  as  big  as  a  baby's  fist,  wrapping 
them  in  a  piece  of  soft  skin  which  he  tied  with  a  string. 
He  made  two  or  three  of  these  bundles  and  tied  them 
to  the  top  of  his  bed,  or  to  a  post  nearby,  where  there 
was  no  danger  of  their  being  disturbed." 

[6] 


LEAFLET  15. 


PUTE  III. 


AMERICAN  INDIAN  TOBACCO  PIPES. 

1.      PIPE  OF  ANTELOPE  BONE,   CHEYENNE.         2-3.      STEATITE   PIPES.   JOHNSON 
COUNTY,     ILLINOIS.  4-5.       LARGE    STEATITE    PIPES,     SOUTHEASTERN     UNITED 

STATES. 


Use  op  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         7 

The  Blackfoot  and  Crow,  nomadic  tribes  of  the 
western  Plains  who  raised  no  food  crops,  cultivated 
small  patches  of  tobacco  for  ceremonial  use.  The 
ground  was  cleared  of  weeds  and  grass,  and  the  seed 
planted  in  holes  about  two  inches  deep,  made  with  a 
pointed  stick.  The  gardens  were  weeded  from  time 
to  time,  but  do  not  seem  to  have  been  regularly  culti- 
vated. In  both  tribes  tobacco  culture  was  attended  by 
elaborate  ceremonies.  Among  the  Crow  it  was  in  the 
hands  of  a  society  which  also  played  an  important  part 
in  the  social  life  of  the  tribe.  The  right  to  plant 
tobacco  was  considered  a  special  privilege  which  could 
be  obtained  only  through  a  revelation  from  some 
supernatural  being  or  through  adoption  by  a  person 
who  had  received  such  a  revelation.  The  adopted  per- 
son could,  in  turn,  adopt  others.  Any  person  might 
receive  such  a  revelation,  and  the  society  was  com- 
posed of  a  number  of  divisions  or  chapters  which 
derived  their  right  to  plant  from  different  revelations 
and  differed  in  their  songs  and  in  details  of  their  cere- 
monies. Within  the  chapter  there  were  certain  rights, 
such  as  that  of  mixing  seed  before  planting,  which 
could  only  be  acquired  by  purchase.  Both  men  and 
women  were  eligible  to  membership,  and  the  society 
held  assemblages  for  dancing  throughout  the  year. 

Some  of  the  tribes  west  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
also  cultivated  tobacco,  although  there  is  little  infor- 
mation on  their  methods.  On  the  Columbia  River  and 
in  northern  California  a  stump  or  fallen  log  was 
burned,  and  the  tobacco  seed  scattered  in  the  ashes. 

Most  of  the  North  American  Indians  mixed  their 
tobacco  with  other  herbs  before  smoking  it.  Among 
the  more  northern  tribes,  especially  those  who  did  not 
raise  tobacco  themselves,  this  was  done  partly  through 
motives  of  economy,  but  the  mixture  was  also  designed 
to  improve  the  flavor,  as  in  our  own  commercial 

[7] 


8  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

blends.  The  favorite  smoke  of  the  tribes  of  the  east- 
ern United  States  and  Canada  was  called  kinnikinnick, 
from  an  Algonquian  word  meaning  "that  which  is 
mixed."  Each  tribe  had  its  own  formula  for  this  mix- 
ture, but  it  usually  consisted  of  tobacco,  sumac  leaves, 
and  the  inner  bark  of  a  species  of  dogwood.  The  bark 
and  leaves  of  a  number  of  other  plants  were  some- 
times added  or  substituted.  A  little  oil  was  usually 
added  to  the  mixture  to  bind  the  dust,  which  would 
otherwise  irritate  the  smoker's  throat  and  clog  the 
pipe.  Kinnikinnick  was  milder  than  pure  tobacco,  and 
was  preferred  by  most  Indians  and  by  many  white 
hunters  and  settlers.  The  Pueblo  Indians  of  the  South- 
west smoked  various  mixtures  of  tobacco  and  herbs  in 
their  religious  ceremonies.  The  greatest  care  was  used 
in  compounding  these  ceremonial  mixtures,  and  the 
plants  were  valued  largely  according  to  the  distance 
from  which  they  came.  The  California  Indians  diluted 
their  tobacco  with  manzanita  leaves  or  mixed  it  with 
Jamestown  weed,  itself  a  powerful  narcotic.  The 
choicest  smoking  mixture  of  the  ancient  Mexicans  was 
made  from  tobacco  and  the  gum  of  the  liquidambar 
tree. 

Three  main  methods  of  smoking  were  used  by  the 
American  aborigines.  The  natives  of  northern  and 
central  South  America  and  the  West  Indies  were  cigar 
smokers.  The  Central  Americans  and  Mexicans  were 
predominantly  cigarette  smokers,  although  some  of  the 
ancient  Mexicans  also  used  pipes.  The  North  American 
Indians,  with  the  exception  of  the  Pueblo  tribes  of  the 
Southwest,  were  exclusively  pipe-smokers.  The  dis- 
tribution of  these  three  methods  in  America  has 
strongly  influenced  European  smoking  customs.  The 
Mediterranean  nations,  who  learned  the  use  of  tobacco 
from  cigar  and  cigarette  using  Indians,  still  prefer  to 
smoke  it  in  these  forms.    The  English,  who  came  in 

[8] 


Use  of  Tobacco  auong  North  American  Indians  9 

contact  with  the  pipe-smoking  Indians  of  the  eastern 
United  States  are  still  predominantly  pipe-smokers. 
The  custom  of  cigarette-smoking  did  not  become 
general  in  northern  Europe  and  the  United  States 
until  quite  recent  times,  and  the  vigorous  opposition 
which  it  has  met  here  seems  to  be  due  quite  as  much 
to  its  novelty  as  to  any  proved  injurious  effects. 

Aboriginal  cigars  were  practically  identical  with 
those  now  in  use  and  were  smoked  in  the  same  way. 

The  aboriginal  cigarette  was  made  with  a  corn- 
husk  wrapper  and  contained  much  less  tobacco  than 
the  modern  commercial  variety.  It  is  still  in  use 
throughout  most  of  Mexico  and  Central  America  and 
among  the  Pueblo  Indians  of  the  southwestern  United 
States.  Archaeological  finds  prove  that  the  south- 
western tribes  smoked  pipes  or  reed  cigarettes  in 
ancient  times,  and  the  corn-husk  cigarette  may  have 
been  introduced  from  Mexico  during  the  early  historic 
period.  In  recent  times  the  spread  of  the  Peyote  cult, 
which  originated  in  the  southwestern  Plains,  has  car- 
ried the  corn-husk  cigarette  to  many  northern  tribes 
who  were  unfamiliar  with  it  even  a  generation  ago. 
The  Mexicans  and  Pueblo  Indians  also  smoked  reed 
cigarettes  in  ancient  times,  and  the  Hopi  form  may  be 
taken  as  typical.  It  consisted  of  a  small  reed,  not  over 
two  and  a  half  inches  long,  packed  with  powdered 
tobacco.  A  band  of  some  fabric  was  usually  bound 
around  the  reed,  leaving  a  flap  hanging  down  by  which 
it  was  held.  Hundreds  of  the  charred  butts  of  such 
cigarettes  have  been  found  in  the  prehistoric  ruins  of 
the  Southwest,  but  they  are  lacking  in  the  lower 
archaeological  levels,  and  the  earliest  inhabitants  of 
the  region  were  probably  pipe  and  not  cigarette 
smokers. 

The  Dakota  say  that  they  did  not  use  pipes  in 
ancient  times,  but  smoked  their  tobacco  in  a  hole  in 
the  ground.    A  similar  method  was  used  by  the  Cree 

(91 


10  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

as  a  makeshift.  Hind  says,  "I  asked  the  Indian  what 
he  would  do  for  a  smoke  until  he  had  finished  the  new 
pipe.  He  arose  and  walking  to  the  edge  of  the  swamp 
cut  four  reeds,  and  joined  some  pieces  together.  After 
he  had  made  a  hole  through  the  joints,  he  gently- 
pushed  one  extremity  in  a  slanting  direction  into  the 
earth,  which  he  had  previously  made  firm  by  pressure 
with  his  foot.  He  then  cut  out  a  small  hole  in  the  clay, 
above  the  extremity  of  the  reed,  and  molding  it  with 
his  fingers,  laughingly  said :  'Now  give  me  tobacco,  and 
I  will  show  you  how  to  smoke  it.'  He  then  filled  the 
hole  with  a  mixture  of  tobacco  and  bearberry,  placed 
a  live  coal  on  the  top,  and  stretching  himself  at  full 
length  on  the  ground,  with  his  chin  supported  by  both 
hands,  he  took  the  reed  between  his  lips  and  enjoyed 
a  long  smoke." 

Indian  pipes  were  of  two  main  tjT)es, — straight 
pipes,  in  which  the  tobacco  cavity  and  stem  were  in 
the  same  plane,  as  in  a  modern  cigar  holder,  and  el- 
bow pipes,  in  which  the  bowl  was  inclined  upward. 
The  straight  pipe  was  kno^vn  throughout  practically 
the  whole  of  America  north  of  Mexico,  but  was  rare 
in  the  eastern  United  States.  It  was  used  to  the  prac- 
tical exclusion  of  all  other  forms  in  the  southwestern 
United  States  and  on  the  Pacific  coast.  The  elabo- 
rately decorated  smoking  tubes  of  the  Mexicans,  men- 
tioned by  early  Spanish  writers,  may  have  been 
straight  pipes,  but  many  of  them  were  probably  cane 
cigarettes.  The  elbow  pipe  was  the  dominant  form  in 
the  eastern  United  States  and  Great  Plains,  and  also 
in  eastern  and  southern  South  America.  It  was  used 
to  a  limited  extent  by  the  prehistoric  Mexicans  and  in 
southern  California,  and  was  not  unknown  in  the 
Southwest.  In  historic  times  it  has  come  into  use  in 
British  Columbia  and  Alaska,  regions  in  which  tobacco 
was  not  originally  smoked. 

[10] 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         11 

The  earliest  pipes  which  can  be  even  approxi- 
mately dated  are  those  of  the  Basket  Makers,  a  people 
who  lived  in  the  southwestern  United  States  in 
ancient  times.  Their  remains  are  found  below  those 
of  the  Cliff  Dwellers,  and  evidence  along  several 
lines  indicates  that  they  were  living  in  the  region  by 
the  beginning  of  the  Christian  era  and  had  been  ab- 
sorbed or  driven  out  by  A.D.  1000.  A  number  of 
their  pipes  have  been  found.  They  are  of  the 
straight  type  and  are  usually  quite  small,  short,  and 
heavy,  with  separate  stems  about  two  inches  long 
(PI.  II,  No.  1).  The  bowls  are  made  of  stone,  unbaked 
clay,  or,  rarely,  wood;  and  the  stems  of  wood  or 
bird-bone.  The  stems  are  attached  with  pitch.  Many 
of  these  pipes  are  heavily  caked,  and  they  were  prob- 
ably used  for  personal  as  well  as  ceremonial  smoking. 
It  is  impossible  to  tell  whether  the  Basket  Makers 
used  tobacco  in  these  pipes  and  analyses  of  the  cake 
have  yielded  only  negative  results.  If  they  did  use 
tobacco,  it  was  probably  the  wild  native  species 
(Nicotiana  attenuata) . 

The  Cliff  Dwellers  and  ancient  Pueblo  tribes  who 
succeeded  the  Basket  Makers  used  straight  pipes  of 
a  somewhat  different  type.  They  were  usually  longer 
and  more  slehder  than  the  Basket  Maker  pipes  with 
somewhat  thinner  walls.  The  smaller  examples, 
which  were  probably  intended  for  personal  use,  seem 
to  have  had  separate  stems  (Plate  II,  No.  2).  Large 
tubular  pipes,  shaped  like  half  a  cigar,  are  also  found, 
but  were  probably  used  only  in  ceremonial  smoking. 
They  are  made  of  clay  or  soft  stone  and  often  show 
beautiful  workmanship  (PI.  II,  No.  3).  Roughly  made 
clay  pipes  of  this  sort,  popularly  known  as  "cloud 
blowers,"  are  still  used  by  the  Hopi  in  their  cere- 
monies. 

The  California  Indians,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Diegueno,  also  used  the  straight  pipe,  and  the  form 

[11] 


12  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

is  probably  as  ancient  there  as  in  the  Southwest. 
There  were  various  tribal  and  regional  differences  in 
the  shape  and  material.  Wooden  pipes  without  sepa- 
rate stems  were  of  nearly  universal  occurrence,  and 
were  probably  the  earliest  form.  In  some  regions 
they  were  carved  and  inlaid  with  abalone  shell.  Pipes 
of  unbaked  clay  with  wooden  stems  were  used  in  a 
few  localities  (P.  II,  No.  4),  but  the  finest  California 
pipes  were  made  of  steatite  or  soapstone  (PI.  II, 
No.  5) .  They  were  usually  provided  with  short  mouth- 
pieces of  wood  or  bone.  The  Hupa  of  northern  Cali- 
fornia used  a  pipe  with  a  small  steatite  bowl  accurate- 
ly fitted  into  a  cavity  in  the  end.  of  a  long  tapering 
wooden  stem  (PI.  II,  No.  6). 

Several  of  the  tribes  of  the  Great  Plains  used 
straight  pipes  in  ancient  times.  These  pipes  were 
made  from  the  leg  bone  of  an  antelope  wrapped  with 
sinew  at  the  bowl  end  (PL  III,  No.  1).  In  some  cases 
the  whole  pipe  was  covered  with  rawhide  or  mem- 
brane. The  Arapaho  say  that  they  used  this  form 
exclusively  in  early  times,  and  the  sacred  pipe  of  the 
tribe  is  straight  with  a  black  stone  bowl  and  a  long 
tubular  wooden  stem.  A  pipe  of  the  same  form,  but 
with  a  red  stone  bowl,  was  used  by  the  Cheyenne  in 
their  Sun  Dance,  and  the  Crow  have  made  straight 
stone  pipe  bowls  until  quite  recent  times  (PL  V,  No.  3) . 

A  number  of  straight  pipes  of  stone  and  clay  have 
been  found  in  the  eastern  United  States,  but  there 
seems  to  be  no  record  of  their  use  by  the  historic 
tribes.  The  examples  shown  (PL  III,  Nos.  2-3)  are 
from  Johnson  County,  Illinois.  They  are  made  from 
close-grained  greenish  brown  steatite,  a  material  soft 
enough  to  be  easily  worked  with  flint  tools,  but  capa- 
ble of  taking  a  fine  polish.  The  large  size  and  excel- 
lent finish  of  these  pipes  indicates  that  they  were  in- 
tended for  ceremonial  rather  than  personal  use.  The 
bird  pipe  is  eight  and  a  quarter  inches  long,  with  an 

[12] 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         IS 

internal  bowl  diameter  of  one  and  a  quarter  inches, 
and  is  an  unusually  good  example  of  aboriginal  sculp- 
ture. The  eye  sockets  are  roughly  finished,  and  were 
probably  inlaid  with  some  other  material. 

Straight  pipes  are  easier  to  make  than  elbow  pipes, 
but  have  certain  disadvantages.  They  have  to  be  di- 
rected upward  in  smoking  to  keep  the  tobacco  from 
falling  out  of  the  bowl,  and  the  tobacco  dust  and  juices 
are  drawn  down  into  the  stem  with  results  familiar  to 
all  smokers.  To  prevent  this,  many  tribes  are  said 
to  have  put  a  pebble  or  pellet  of  clay  in  the  bottom  of 
the  bowl  before  filling  it.  Even  a  slight  angle  be- 
tween the  bowl  and  stem  is  a  great  convenience  to 
the  smoker,  and  this  improvement  once  hit  upon,  per- 
haps through  faulty  workmanship,  the  development 
of  the  elbow  pipe  was  easy.  Pipes  from  different 
parts  of  North  America  show  all  degrees  of  bowl  in- 
clination from  the  straight  tube  to  a  right  angle,  and 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  main  evolution  of 
the  elbow  pipe  was  along  this  line.  In  the  Mississippi 
Valley  and  Great  Plains  there  are,  however,  certain 
types  of  elbow  pipe  which  could  hardly  have  been  de- 
veloped in  this  way.  In  these  the  bowl  rests  upon  a 
base  which  extends  out  for  some  distance  in  front  of 
it.  From  various  archaeological  finds  it  seems  prob- 
able that  these  types  were  developed  from  pipes  which 
had  a  corn-cob  bowl  pierced  through  the  base  with  a 
reed  stem. 

North  American  elbow  pipes  have  never  been  sat- 
isfactorily classified,  but  about  twenty  types  are  dis- 
tinguishable. Only  the  more  important  of  these  can 
be  mentioned  here.  Most  of  the  types  show  a  more  or 
less  continuous  geographical  distribution,  but  there 
was  no  tribe  or  region  in  which  all  the  pipes  were 
of  the  same  type.  The  Chippewa  distinguished  four 
types  of  pipe  which  were  in  simultaneous  use  among 
them.    These  were — (1)  Women's  pipes,  which  were 

[18] 


14  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

small,  with  short  stems  and  little  decoration.  (2)  Men's 
pipes  for  ordinary  smoking,  which  were  somewhat 
larger  and  better  made  than  the  women's  pipes,  but 
were  also  small.  (3)  Personal  pipes  of  famous  war- 
riors, which  were  larger  than  the  ordinary  pipes,  with 
heavy  decorated  stems  sometimes  as  much  as  five  feet 
long.  (4)  Chief's  pipes  and  ceremonial  pipes,  which 
were  large,  with  long  stems  like  the  warrior's  pipes, 
and  were  elaborately  decorated.  Even  the  pipes  for 
ordinary  smoking  were  highly  valued  and  would  often 
be  carved  and  decorated  in  the  owner's  spare  time. 
Stone  for  pipe-making,  and  even  finished  pipes,  seem 
to  have  been  bartered  from  tribe  to  tribe  in  ancient 
times. 

The  Indians  made  their  pipes  from  many  materi- 
als. Most  of  the  prehistoric  pipes  are  of  stone  or  clay, 
but  early  records  prove  that  wood,  horn,  and  bone 
were  also  used  by  the  tribes  of  the  Atlantic  Coast  at 
the  time  of  their  first  contact  with  Europeans.  Almost 
all  the  pipes  made  of  these  perishable  materials  have 
been  destroyed,  but  they  were  probably  of  the  same 
types  as  the  stone  and  clay  pipes  from  this  region. 
Clay  pipes  were  in  at  least  occasional  use  throughout 
the  whole  of  North  America  east  of  the  Great  Plains, 
but  the  finest  examples  are  found  in  the  old  Iroquois 
territory  in  New  York  State  and  Canada,  and  in  the 
southeastern  United  States.  Stone  pipes  are  found 
from  the  Atlantic  coast  to  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
seem  to  have  been  preferred  by  all  those  tribes  among 
whom  pottery  making  was  poorly  developed. 

Large  numbers  of  Iroquoian  clay  pipes  have  been 
found,  in  old  cemeteries  and  village  sites,  and  their 
form  makes  them  easily  distinguishable  in  collections. 
They  are  made  of  fine  hard-burned  clay  and  have  a 
graceful  trumpet  shape,  with  rather  long  slender 
bowls  and  short  stems  (PI.  IV,  No.  3).  The  upper 
part  of  the  bowl  is  often  encircled  by  a  band  of  incised 

[14] 


LEAFLET  15. 


PLATE  IV. 


AMERICAN  INDIAN  TOBACCO  PIPES. 


1.      MONITOR   PIPE,    HOPEWELL   MOUNDS.    OHIO.  2.     BIRO  AND   FISH    PIPE, 

HOPEWELL   MOUNDS,    OHIO.  3.      IROQUOIS  CLAY   PIPE.  4.      CATAWBA  CLAY 

PIPES  (MODERN).         5.     MEXICAN  CLAY  PIPES  (TOLTECr). 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         16 

designs  or  modeled  into  a  human  face  or  bird's  head. 
They  were  not  provided  with  separate  stems. 

Archaeological  finds  on  the  Atlantic  coast  prove 
that  the  Indians  of  that  region  also  used  small  clay 
pipes,  although  the  early  visitors  only  mention  large 
pipes  with  excessively  long  stems.  It  seems  prob- 
able that  the  larger  forms  were  semi-ceremonial,  like 
the  warrior's  and  chief's  pipes  of  the  Chippewa,  while 
the  small  pipes  were  used  for  individual  smoking. 
Many  of  these  small  pipes  resemble  rather  closely 
the  early  European  trade  pipes,  and  modern  clay  pipes 
and  straight  briers,  but  the  type  is  unquestionably 
pre-European.  It  was  probably  the  prototype  from 
which  modem  European  pipes  were  developed.  Some 
of  the  ancient  pipes  were  made  in  one  piece,  while 
others  were  evidently  provided  with  separate  stems, 
probably  reeds.  Identical  forms  were  made  in  stone 
in  this  region. 

In  the  southeastern  United  States  short  clay  pipes 
with  reed  or  wooden  stems  seem  to  have  been  in  com- 
mon use.  They  were  often  rather  elaborately  decorated, 
with  modeled  figures  of  birds,  clay  pellets,  or  incised 
designs.  This  form  of  pipe  is  still  in  use  among  the 
Catawba,  although  many  of  their  pipes  show  the  in- 
fluence of  European  models  (PI.  IV,  No.  4). 

Pottery  pipes  with  flaring  bowls  and  slender  stems, 
sometimes  as  much  as  eighteen  inches  long,  are  found 
in  prehistoric  Caddoan  sites  in  Arkansas.  The  stems 
are  excessively  fragile,  and  as  these  pipes  are  usually 
found  in  the  corners  of  graves,  it  seems  probable  that 
they  were  made  for  mortuary  use  rather  than  actual 
smoking.  They  are  clearly  imitations  of  a  type  which 
had  a  corn-cob  bowl  impaled  on  a  reed  stem. 

Stone  pipes  occur  over  a  wider  territory  than  pot- 
tery pipes  and  show  a  greater  diversity  of  form. 
There  are  some  regions  in  which  the  same  shapes  oc- 
cur in  both  stone  and  pottery,  but  there  are  several 

[16] 


16  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

types  of  pipe  which  appear  never  to  have  been  made 
of  clay.  Most  of  the  stones  used  in  pipe-making  were 
quite  soft,  but  a  few  pipes  of  quartzite  and  other  hard 
rocks  have  been  found.  The  material  was  carefully 
selected,  and  was  usually  obtained  from  regular  quar- 
ries. In  the  eastern  United  States  steatite,  serpen- 
tine and  slate  were  the  stones  most  used.  In  the 
upper  Mississippi  valley  and  Great  Plains  the  favorite 
material  was  catlinite,  a  fine-grained  claystone  soft 
enough  to  be  easily  worked  with  stone  tools,  but  firm 
enough  to  take  a  high  polish.  Deposits  of  this  ma- 
terial have  been  found  in  several  states,  and  a  local 
variety  was  used  by  the  Ohio  Mound  Builders.  The 
most  famous  catlinite  quarries  are  in  southeastern 
Minnesota  and  yield  the  highly  prized  red  stone  from 
which  so  many  Plains  Indian  pipes  are  made.  Here 
the  catlinite  occurs  as  a  narrow  layer,  nowhere  more 
than  twenty  inches  thick,  between  strata  of  compact 
quartzite  five  to  eight  feet  thick.  To  reach  the  catlin- 
ite it  was  necessary  to  break  away  the  quartzite  with 
stone  mauls  or  shatter  it  by  building  large  fires  upon 
it  and  then  dashing  water  on  the  heated  stone.  The 
old  Indian  workings  extend  for  more  than  a  mile 
along  the  face  of  the  deposit,  and  the  quarry  must 
have  been  in  use  for  several  centuries.  According  to 
Indian  traditions,  the  place  was  visited  by  many  dif- 
ferent tribes,  who  considered  it  common  property  and 
abstained  from  hostilities  there.  In  historic  times 
the  Dakota  considered  it  exclusively  their  property, 
and  part  of  it  was  set  aside  for  their  use  when  they^ 
ceded  their  other  lands  in  the  vicinity.  They  still  visit 
it  occasionally  to  obtain  stone  for  their  pipes.  White 
men  have  also  worked  the  quarry,  and  in  1865  and 
1866  over  two  thousand  pipes  of  this  material  were 
made  by  the  Northwestern  Fur  Company  for  their 
trade  with  the  Indians. 

[  16  ] 


Use  op  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         17 

The  finest  aboriginal  pipes  are  unquestionably  the 
so-called  monitor  pipes  found  in  the  Ohio  mounds. 
Many  of  these  show  such  excellence  of  design  and  ex- 
ecution that  early  investigators  doubted  whether  they 
could  be  the  work  of  American  Indians.  They  are 
made  of  soft  stone  or  of  fire  clay,  which  was  carved 
like  stone,  but  never  of  pottery.  The  type  is  charac- 
terized by  a  long,  broad,  and  very  thin  base  from  the 
center  of  which  the  bowl  rises  vertically.  The  base 
may  be  either  flat  or  convex.  The  bowl  is  often 
made  in  the  form  of  an  animal  or  bird,  and  some  of 
these  effigies  show  artistic  ability  of  a  high  order. 
Even  when  the  style  is  impressionistic,  the  species  is 
usually  unmistakable.  The  significance  of  these  carv- 
ings can  only  be  conjectured,  but  so  many  species  are 
shown  that  it  seems  probable  that  they  represent  the 
personal  guardians  of  the  pipes'  owners.  None  of 
the  historic  tribes  used  pipes  of  this  type,  and  the 
finest  examples  are  unquestionably  pre-Columbian. 
One  of  the  pipes  illustrated  (PI.  IV,  No.  1)  is  of  typi- 
cal monitor  form,  but  has  the  bowl  incised  with  de- 
signs representing  bird's  heads.  In  the  other  (PI.  IV, 
No.  2)  the  shape  has  been  modified  to  suit  the  subject, 
a  roseate  spoonbill  resting  on  the  back  of  some  large 
water  animal,  probably  a  mud  puppy  {Necturus  macu- 
losus) . 

A  number  of  large  stone  pipes  have  been  found  in 
the  southeastern  United  States  (PI.  Ill,  Nos.  4-5). 
Some  of  these  pipes  weigh  several  pounds  and,  as  they 
are  everywhere  associated  with  smaller  forms  of 
stone  or  clay,  they  were  probably  made  for  ceremonial 
use.  They  seem  to  have  been  provided  with  long, 
thick  wooden  stems.  These  heavy  pipes  are  of  several 
types,  and  are  usually  well  made,  but  are  inferior  to 
the  monitor  pipes  in  design  and  execution.  In  Georgia, 
Alabama,  and  the  lower  Mississippi  valley  there  is  a 
very  massive  short  type  in  which  the  bowl  and  stem 

[17  1 


18  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

holes  are  conical  and  of  nearly  equal  size  and  depth. 
These  biconical  pipes  are  often  made  in  the  form  of 
human  effigies  or  of  highly  conventionalized  animals 
or  birds. 

Early  visitors  to  the  north  Atlantic  Coast  say  that 
the  Indians  of  that  region  used  heavy  carved  pipes 
with  stems  three  to  six  feet  long.  Large  stone  pipes 
are  hardly  ever  found  in  this  region,  and  even  small 
carved  pipes  are  extremely  rare.  It  seems  probable 
that  these  early  forms  either  had  quite  small,  plain 
bowls  with  heavy  carved  stems,  or  were  made  of  wood 
or  other  perishable  material.  Holm  says  that  the 
Pennsylvania  Indians  made  their  pipe  bowls  of  horn, 
and  several  of  the  Algonquian  tribes  have  made  a  con- 
siderable use  of  carved  wooden  pipes  in  historic  times. 
Among  many  tribes  the  stems  of  ceremonial  pipes 
were  elaborately  decorated,  and  were  considered  more 
important  than  the  bowls. 

Plains  Indian  pipes  are  commoner  in  collections 
than  those  from  any  other  region.  The  Blackfoot 
preferred  pipes  of  black  stone,  with  acorn-shaped 
bowls  reminiscent  of  those  in  use  among  the  Micmac 
and  other  northeastern  Algonquian  tribes  (Pl.V,No.  4) , 
but  throughout  most  of  the  Plains  the  favorite 
pipe  was  made  of  Minnesota  catlinite,  and  was  of 
Sioux  type  (PI.  V,  Nos.  6-8).  This  type  is  common  in 
museums  and  private  collections.  It  has  a  tubular 
bowl  set  vertically  on  a  long  base  which  projects  be- 
yond the  bowl  as  a  pointed  spur.  This  projecting  base 
is  also  found  in  the  monitor  pipes,  and  the  two  types 
may  be  remotely  related.  Pipes  of  the  Sioux  type 
have  been  made  in  great  numbers  by  both  whites  and 
Indians,  and  many  of  those  in  collections  were  prob- 
ably manufactured  by  whites.  Either  early  white 
traders,  or  the  tribes  on  the  eastern  edge  of  the  Plains 
originated  the  practice  of  inlaying  the  bowls  and 
bases  with  lead.    The  pipe  was  cut  to  nearly  its  final 

[18] 


so 


■  «■     '     ■» 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians         19 

form,  and  a  clay  mold  made.  Deep  grooves  were  then 
cut  in  the  stone  to  receive  the  lead,  and  the  pipe  was 
returned  to  the  mold,  and  the  metal  poured.  The  metal 
and  stone  were  then  rubbed  down  to  a  smooth  surface. 
Valuable  pipes  which  had  been  broken  were  some- 
times repaired  in  this  way. 

All  Plains  Indian  pipes,  with  the  exception  of  the 
straight  bone  pipes  previously  noted,  were  provided 
with  long,  heavy,  wooden  stems.  Some  tribes  pre- 
ferred tubular,  others  flat  stems.  In  ancient  times 
most  of  the  long  pipe  stems  were  probably  split 
lengthwise,  the  smoke  passage  excavated,  and  the  two 
halves  glued  together.  Some  of  the  northern  and 
western  tribes  used  a  solid  tubular  stem  which  they 
pierced  by  an  ingenious  method.  They  selected  a 
young  ash  shoot  which  had  a  small  pith  cavity  in  the 
center  and  caught  a  wood-boring  grub.  They  made  a 
hole  in  one  end  of  the  shoot  and  inserted  the  grub, 
closing  the  opening  behind  it.  The  shoot  was  then 
hung  over  a  fire,  and  the  grub,  following  the  pith  as 
the  line  of  least  resistance,  drilled  a  hole  through  the 
shaft  from  end  to  end.  When  it  emerged,  it  was  cap- 
tured and  returned  to  the  place  where  it  had  been 
found  with  appropriate  thanks.  Split  tubular  stems 
are  rather  unsatisfactory,  as  the  halves  are  liable  to 
warp  and  separate.  The  broad,  flat  pipe-stem  was 
probably  invented  to  give  a  wider  surface  for  the  glue 
and  hence  a  firmer  joint.  It  reached  its  highest  de- 
velopment among  the  Dakota,  and  they  seem  to  have 
been  the  inventors  of  the  "<hizzle  stem,"  a  broad,  flat 
stem  pierced  with  designs  so  that  the  smoke  passage 
had  to  make  several  turns  between  the  pipe-bowl  and 
mouth-piece.  Pipe  stems  were  often  decorated  with 
elaborate  wrappings  which  helped  to  hold  the  halves 
together. 


20  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

A  peculiar  form  of  pipe,  which  may  be  a  variant 
of  the  Sioux  type,  is  found  in  a  limited  area  in  the  up- 
per Mississippi  valley.  These  pipes  usually  have 
bases  with  long  projecting  spurs,  but  the  bowl  is 
smaller  than  the  stem  hole  and  very  low.  It  is  sur- 
rounded by  a  broad,  thin  disk  sometimes  as  much  as 
three  and  a  half  inches  across.  Some  of  these  "disk 
pipes"  suggest  the  shallow-bowled  pipes  of  the  Asia- 
tics, but  the  form  is  certainly  prehistoric.  Pipes  of 
this  type  are  rare,  and  were  probably  made  for  cere- 
monial use.  One  of  the  sacred  pipes  of  the  Omaha 
is  of  this  sort. 

Although  all  the  Mexican  Indians  were  predomi- 
nantly cigarette-smokers,  ancient  clay  pipes  of  elbow 
type  have  been  found  in  the  valley  of  Mexico  (PL  IV, 
No.  5).  They  are  not  mentioned  by  any  of  the  early 
Spanish  writers,  but  the  specimens  found  are  un- 
questionably of  native  workmanship,  and  are  probably 
prehistoric.  The  commonest  form  has  a  bulb-shaped 
bowl  and  a  rather  thick  stem  flattened  on  the  bottom, 
so  that  the  pipe  will  stand  upright.  The  occurrence  of 
elbow  pipes  in  a  limited  area,  far  from  any  other  in 
which  they  were  known,  is  difficult  to  account  for. 
Some  of  these  pipes  resemble  forms  in  use  in  the  south- 
eastern United  States  and  lower  Mississippi  valley. 

Elbow  pipes  were  also  used  on  the  Northwest 
Coast  and  in  Alaska,  but  they  were  introduced  into 
these  regions  after  the  discovery  of  America.  The 
Alaskan  Eskimo  apparently  learned  the  practice  of 
smoking  from  the  natives  of  Siberia,  and  their  pipes 
are  of  Asiatic  type,  with  very  small  bowls  (PI.  VI, 
No.  1) .  Their  best  pipes  are  made  from  walrus  tusks, 
and  are  often  elaborately  etched.  The  tusk  is  usually 
split  lengthwise  and  the  halves  joined  in  such  a  way 
that  they  can  be  taken  apart  to  obtain  the  juice  dis- 
tilled in  smoking.    The  juice  was  mixed  with  fungus 

[»] 


Use  of  Tcaacco  among  North  American  Indians         21 

ashes  for  chewing  or  with  the  smoking  tobacco.  Poor- 
ly made  pipes  of  Eskimo  form  were  used  by  the  Atha- 
pascan tribes  of  interior  Alaska,  who  were  taught  to 
smoke  by  the  Eskimo. 

The  Indians  of  the  Noi-thwest  Coast  chewed  to- 
bacco in  ancient  times,  but  did  not  smoke  it.  The 
more  northern  tribes  may  have  adopted  smoking  from 
Asia  by  way  of  the  Eskimo,  but  their  pipes  show  little 
resemblance  to  the  Asiatic  forms,  and  they  probably 
learned  the  practice  from  white  visitors.  The  natives 
of  this  region  are  expert  cai*vers,  and  nearly  all  their 
pipes  are  decorated  with  figures  of  men  or  totemic 
animals.  Wood  is  the  favorite  material  (PI.  VI,  No.  2), 
but  bone  and  antler  are  also  used  and  some  of  the 
tribes  make  very  elaborate  pipes  of  black  slate  (PI.  VI, 
No.  3).  The  slate  pipes  are  much  sought  after  by 
collectors,  and  many  of  them  seem  to  have  been  made 
for  sale  rather  than  use. 

Pipes  are  mentioned  among  the  goods  given  to 
the  Indians  in  some  of  the  earliest  English  land-pur- 
chases, and  they  were  regularly  carried  by  the  white 
traders  with  the  Indians.  An  English  pipe-maker, 
Robert  Cotton,  came  to  Virginia  in  1608.  The  earliest 
trade  pipes  were  made  of  clay  and  seem  to  have  been 
patterned  after  the  small  pipes  used  for  personal 
smoking  by  the  coast  tribes.  Those  made  in  the  var- 
ious European  countries  showed  minor  differences, 
but  were  all  of  nearly  the  same  form.  The  later  trade 
pipes  show  an  increasing  diversity  in  shape  and 
decoration,  but  the  whites  apparently  did  not  attempt 
to  make  the  larger  ceremonial  forms.  The  most  im- 
portant contribution  on  the  part  of  the  whites  to  the 
Indian  tobacco  complex  was  the  tomahawk  pipe.  This 
implement  had  a  pipe-bowl  above  and  a  blade  below, 
and  could  be  used  either  as  a  pipe  or  as  a  weapon. 
We  do  not  know  when  or  where  it  originated,  but  it 

(21] 


22  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

apparently  did  not  come  into  general  use  in  the  Eng- 
lish Colonies  before  1750.  All  the  European  nations 
equipped  their  Indian  allies  with  tomahawk  pipes, 
and  a  number  of  types  are  recognized  by  collectors. 
The  pipe-bowl  was  nearly  always  of  acorn  shape,  like 
the  pipe  used  by  the  northeastern  Algonquians,  but  the 
blade  varied  considerably.  In  general,  the  English 
and  early  American  tomahawks  had  straight-edged 
hatchet-blades,  and  the  French  ones  had  diamond- 
shaped  blades,  like  spear-heads.  Spanish  tomahawks 
had  flaring  blades  with  curved  edges,  like  mediseval 
battle-axes.  There  were  a  number  of  white  toma- 
hawk-makers whose  work  differed  in  minor  details; 
and  fine  inlaid,  chased,  or  inscribed  tomahawks  were 
sometimes  made  for  presentation  to  important  chiefs. 
An  Indian  warrior  was  rarely  without  his  pipe 
and  tobacco,  and  special  tobacco-bags  were  used  by  all 
the  tribes  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  In  early 
times,  these  bags  were  usually  made  from  the  skins 
of  small  animals  taken  off  whole.  The  Eastern  Wood- 
land tribes  used  a  rather  small  bag  which  was  tied  to 
the  belt.  The  Plains  tribes  used  a  larger  bag,  often 
made  from  a  fawn  skin,  in  which  they  carried  both  the 
pipe  and  tobacco.  In  historic  times  the  northern  Plains 
Indians  have  used  long,  flat  rectangular  bags  decorated 
with  beads  or  porcupine  quills,  but  this  type  apparently 
is  not  an  ancient  one  (PI.  V,  No.  10).  Several  of 
the  Plains  tribes  also  had  special  boards  on  which 
the  tobacco  was  cut  up  and  elaborate  pipe  tampers 
(PI.  V,  No.  9) .  These  accessories  were  used  mainly  in 
ceremonial  smoking.  In  Pawnee  ceremonies  the  pipe 
was  always  tamped  with  an  arrow  captured  from  the 
enemy.  It  was  forbidden  to  pack  it  with  the  fingers, 
as  the  gods  might  think  that  the  man  who  did  so  of- 
fered himself  with  the  tobacco  and  take  his  life.  The 
tribes  of  the  Northwest  Coast  crushed  their  tobacco 

[22] 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians       28 

in  mortars.  These  were  usually  made  from  whale 
vertebrae,  and  were  often  elaborately  carved. 

Even  if  documentary  evidence  of  the  New  World 
origin  of  tobacco  were  lacking,  its  importance  in  the 
religious  and  ceremonial  life  of  the  Indians  would 
leave  little  doubt  of  the  antiquity  of  its  use  among 
them.  Among  all  the  tribes  east  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains tobacco  was  the  favorite  offering  to  the  super- 
natural powers,  and  among  the  Central  Algonquians  no 
ceremony  could  take  place  without  it.  As  a  sacrifice 
it  might  be  burned  as  incense,  cast  into  the  air  or  on 
the  ground,  or  buried.  There  were  sacred  places  at 
which  every  visitor  left  a  tobacco  offering,  and  during 
storms  it  was  thrown  into  lakes  and  rivers  to  appease 
the  under-water  powers.  Smoking  was  indulged  in 
on  all  solemn  occasions,  such  as  councils,  and  was  a 
necessary  part  of  most  religious  ceremonies.  In  such 
ceremonial  smoking  the  methods  of  picking  up,  filling, 
and  lighting  the  pipe  were  usually  rigidly  prescribed, 
and  the  first  smoke  was  offered  to  the  spirits.  The 
methods  of  passing  and  holding  the  pipe  were  also 
prescribed  and  differed  with  the  ceremony  and  even 
with  the  personal  taboos  of  the  smokers.  In  the  reli- 
gious ceremonies  of  the  Hopi,  the  head  chief  was 
attended  by  an  assistant  of  nearly  equal  rank,  who 
ceremonially  lighted  the  pipe,  and  with  certain  for- 
malities and  set  words  handed  it  to  the  chief,  who  blew 
the  smoke  to  the  world  quarters  and  over  the  altar  as 
a  preliminary  to  his  invocation. 

The  so-called  medicine-bundles,  collections  of 
sacred  objects  around  which  the  religious  life  of  many 
of  the  Central  Algonquians  and  Plains  Tribes  centered, 
often  contained  pipes  which  were  smoked  in  the  cere- 
monies attending  the  opening  of  the  bundle  (PI.  V, 
Nos.  1-2) .  In  some  cases  the  pipe  itself  seems  to  have 
been  the  most  important  object,  and  the  palladium  of 
the  Arapaho  tribe  is  a  straight  pipe  of  black  stone. 

[a] 


24  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

Among  some  of  the  eastern  Siouan  tribes  each  clan 
had  its  sacred  pipe  which  was  used  at  namings  and 
other  clan  ceremonies.  The  stems  of  these  pipes  were 
covered  with  elaborate  wrappings  and  other  orna- 
ments which  symbolized  the  various  supernatural 
powers  invoked  in  the  ceremonies,  and  the  sanctity  of 
the  pipe  lay  in  its  stem  rather  than  its  bowl. 

The  calumet,  so  often  mentioned  in  early  Ameri- 
can records,  was  not  a  pipe,  but  an  elaborately  deco- 
rated shaft,  pierced  like  a  pipe  stem,  to  which  a  pipe 
bowl  was  not  necessarily  attached.  The  name  itself 
is  not  of  Indian  origin,  but  is  a  Norman-French  word 
meaning  a  reed  or  tube.  J.  N.  B.  Hewitt  says,  "From 
the  meager  descriptions  of  the  calumet  and  its  uses  it 
would  seem  that  it  has  a  ceremonially  symbolic  his- 
tory independent  of  that  of  the  pipe;  and  that  when 
the  pipe  became  an  altar,  by  its  employment  for  burn- 
ing sacrificial  tobacco  to  the  gods,  convenience  and  con- 
vention united  the  already  highly  symbolic  calumet 
shafts  and  the  sacrificial  tobacco  altar,  the  pipe  bowl ; 
hence  it  became  one  of  the  most  profoundly  sacred 
objects  known  to  the  Indians  of  northern  America. 
As  the  colors  and  other  adornments  of  the  shaft  rep- 
resent symbolically  various  dominant  gods  of  the 
Indian  pantheon,  it  follows  that  the  symbolism  of  the 
calumet  and  pipe  represented  a  veritable  executive 
council  of  the  gods.  Moreover,  in  some  of  the  elabo- 
rate ceremonies  in  which  it  was  necessary  to  portray 
this  symbolism  the  employment  of  two  shafts  became 
necessary,  because  the  one  with  its  colors  and  acces- 
sory adornments  represented  the  procreative  male 
power  and  his  aid,  and  was  denominated  the  male,  the 
fatherhood  of  nature;  and  the  other  with  its  colors 
and  necessary  adornments  represented  the  reproduct- 
ive female  power  and  her  aid,  and  was  denominated 
the  female,  the  motherhood  of  nature. 

[24] 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians       25 

"The  calumet  was  employed  by  ambassadors  and 
travelers  as  a  passport;  it  was  used  in  ceremonies  de- 
signed to  conciliate  foreign  and  hostile  nations  and  to 
conclude  lasting  peace ;  to  ratify  the  alliance  of  friendly 
tribes;  to  secure  favorable  weather  for  journeys;  to 
bring  needed  rain ;  and  to  attest  contracts  and  treaties 
which  could  not  be  violated  without  incurring  the 
wTath  of  the  gods.  The  use  of  the  calumet  was  in- 
culcated by  religious  precept  and  example.  A  chant 
and  a  dance  have  become  kno\vn  as  the  chant  and 
dance  of  the  calumet;  together  they  were  employed 
as  an  invocation  to  one  or  more  of  the  gods.  By  nam- 
ing in  the  chant  the  souls  of  those  against  whom  war 
must  be  waged,  such  persons  were  doomed  to  die  at 
the  hands  of  the  person  so  naming  them.  The  dance 
and  chant  were  rather  in  honor  of  the  calumet  than 
with  the  calumet. 

"The  Omaha  and  cognate  names  for  this  dance 
and  chant  signify  'to  make  a  sacred  kinship,'  but  not 
'to  dance.'  This  is  a  key  to  the  esoteric  significance 
of  the  use  of  the  calumet.  The  one  for  whom  the 
dance  for  the  calumet  was  performed  became  thereby 
the  adopted  son  of  the  performer.  One  might  ask  an- 
other to  dance  the  Calumet  dance  for  him,  or  one 
might  offer  to  perform  this  dance  for  another,  but  in 
either  case  the  offer  or  invitation  could  be  declined. 

"Charlevoix  (1721)  says  that  if  the  calumet  is 
offered  and  accepted  it  is  the  custom  to  smoke  in  the 
calumet,  and  the  engagements  contracted  are  held 
sacred  and  inviolable,  in  just  so  far  as  such  human 
things  are  inviolable.  The  Indians  profess  that  the 
violation  of  such  an  engagement  never  escapes  just 
punishment.  In  the  heat  of  battle,  if  an  adversary 
offer  the  calumet  to  his  opponent  and  he  accept  it,  the 
weapons  on  both  sides  are  at  once  laid  down ;  but  to 
accept  or  to  refuse  the  offer  of  the  calumet  is  optional. 

(ssl 


26  Field  Museum  of  Natural  History 

There  are  calumets  for  various  kinds  of  public  engage- 
ments, and  when  such  bargains  are  made  an  exchange 
of  calumets  is  usual,  in  this  manner  rendering  the  con- 
tract or  bargain  sacred. 

"By  smoking  together  in  the  calumet  the  contract- 
ing parties  intend  to  invoke  the  sun  and  the  other 
gods  as  witnesses  of  the  mutual  obligations  assumed 
by  the  parties,  and  as  a  guaranty  the  one  to  the  other 
that  they  shall  be  fulfilled.  This  is  accomplished  by 
blowing  the  smoke  toward  the  sky,  the  four  world 
quarters,  and  the  earth,  with  a  suitable  invocation, 

"There  were  calumets  for  commerce  and  trade  and 
for  other  social  and  political  purposes;  but  the  most 
important  were  those  designed  for  war  and  those  for 
peace  and  brotherhood.  It  was  vitally  necessary, 
however,  that  they  should  be  distinguishable  at  once, 
lest  through  ignorance  and  inattention  one  should  be- 
come the  victim  of  treachery.  The  Indians  in  general 
chose  not  or  dared  not  to  violate  openly  the  faith 
attested  by  the  calumet,  and  sought  to  deceive  an 
intended  victim  by  the  use  of  a  false  calumet  of  peace 
in  an  endeavor  to  make  the  victim  in  some  measure 
responsible  for  the  consequences.  On  one  occasion  a 
band  of  Sioux,  seeking  to  destroy  some  Indians  and 
their  protectors,  a  French  officer  and  his  men,  pre- 
sented, in  the  guise  of  friendship,  twelve  calumets, 
apparently  of  peace;  but  the  officer,  who  was  versed 
in  such  matters  and  whose  suspicion  was  aroused  by 
the  number  offered,  consulted  an  astute  Indian  at- 
tached to  his  force,  who  caused  him  to  see  that  among 
the  twelve  one  of  the  calumet  shafts  was  not  matted 
with  hair  like  the  others,  and  that  on  the  shaft  was 
graven  the  figure  of  a  viper,  coiled  around  it.  The 
officer  was  made  to  understand  that  this  was  the  sign 
of  covert  treachery,  thus  frustrating  the  intended 
Sioux  plot." 

[26] 


Use  of  Tobacco  among  North  American  Indians       27 

The  use  of  the  calumet  was  almost  universal  in  the 
Mississippi  valley  and  among  the  Plains  tribes,  but 
in  the  Ohio  and  St.  Lawrence  valleys  and  southward 
its  use  is  not  so  definitely  shown.  The  symbolism  and 
ritual  of  the  calumet  reached  its  highest  development 
among  the  Pawnee  and  neighboring  Siouan  tribes  and 
the  concept  probably  originated  in  this  region. 

R.  Linton. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  REFERENCES 

Handbook  of  American  Indians,  Bureau  of  American  Ethnology, 
Bulletin  30.  See  headings: — Calumet,  Pipes,  Smoking, 
Tobacco. 

Hind — The  Canadian  Red  River,  London,  1860. 

LowiE,  R.  H. — The  Tobacco  Society  of  the  Crow  Indians.  An- 
thropolog^ical  Papers  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History.    Vol.  XXI,  Pt.  2. 

Setcheix,  W.  a. — Aboriginal  Tobaccos,  American  Anthropolo- 
gist, Vol.  XXIII,  No.  4,  1921. 

Wilson,  G.  L. — Agrriculture  of  the  Hidatsa  Indians.  University 
of  Minnesota,  Studies  in  Social  Science,  No.  9. 


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